


Shots in the Dark

by Wristic



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, is there anything more pure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-05 12:32:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11578149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wristic/pseuds/Wristic
Summary: You’ve been picked up by a mysterious organization for your ability to turn invisible. You’re given a special suit and tons of money, but how much is that worth if the missions they send you on start stepping out of your moral code.





	Shots in the Dark

“The guy never sleeps! That’s hardly my fault!” God you’d been here for _WEEKS_. Even your employer was getting antsy, but nowhere near as antsy as you. **  
**

“Are you saying you need assistance?” he asked but you could just feel, saying yes was the wrong answer.

Sliding down on the floor of the empty apartment you rubbed your eyes. “No. I’m just saying be a little more patient. You said you’ve been waiting decades for this arm, you can wait a little longer.”

It may have been a nice sounding promise but you did _not_ want to stay any longer. You were in a country whose language you couldn’t speak and the whole reason for being there was to steal a prosthetic, which was just plain mean. Not to mention you were breaking your own code by staying longer than a day. Way longer than a day. “Please, can you guys just rent me the apartment above. I’m sitting in it now, it’s totally empty.”

“The whole reason we hired you-”

“Found me.” It was frustrating the way they kept twisting your words and reality.

“-was for missions to get done fast. Without evidence. You moving in, and then disappearing when the arm is in your possession, is evidence.”

You ground your teeth, “Whatever. I’ll let you know when I have it.” you hung up, suppressing the urge to throw the cell into the opposite wall.

The super secret organization who hired you was getting more demanding with every mission and more…morbid. A new mission was like a step in testing your moral boundaries. You didn’t know if they were doing it on purpose, but you were about done with them. You loved your debit card with the unsuspicious hundreds of thousands in the bank, but you didn’t love it enough to put up with their questionable motives and even more questionable tactics.

Defeated with a head full of toxic thoughts, you decided to have an angry binge for lunch. Keeping up your invisibility had never been draining, but this mission certainly was. So you went out in the small city, checking around patio restaurants.

As someone was about to toss their food in the garbage they turned away letting you grab it and phase the tray with its contents into your side of the world. You hounded down the half eaten burger and didn’t care for the persons panicked searching as you opened the lid to the soda and gulped down the rest, ice included. Tossing the tray in its proper place, the person having long since run off, you wiped your hands and caught sight of your target down the street.

Soldier was the only name they gave you. Avoiding specifics was what the boss was best at, but doing the live-in thing always revealed way too much about a person when they thought they were alone.

For someone they warned was an assassin there was a gentle charm about him, even just walking around outside he’d help people if they needed it, flashing a kind smile you never really saw when he was alone. It made you want to talk to him. Not about anything in particular but just, sit down and chat about things. Though part of that may also be your slipping sanity with no one to talk to for two and a half weeks.

On good days sometimes he’d sing in the apartment, particularly when he was cooking. You had to look up the songs they were so old, it was rare when you knew one of them. Hearing him sing, have a good day, filled you with this bizarre relief for the stranger. But you reasoned it was because on bad days, the guy was tormented with nightmares and memories. You could tell when it really got to him. He’d stay in his bed all day, barely moving, sometimes crying, whispering names and apologies that were lost on you. You felt embarrassed remembering how close you came to forgetting he didn’t know you were there and nearly told him to get up and at least drink something.

You always knew staying in someone’s place without them knowing was going to be a bad idea. First and foremost was the uncomfortable breach in privacy, but a thief probably shouldn’t be empathizing this much on a job. And each night you didn’t retrieve the arm meant another day your mind was screaming for you to leave without it.

You returned to his apartment before he did, and something about the look on his face, the pause after he closed the door and took off his jacket, it was going to be one of those nights. Part of you wanted to leave right then, but the other was your boss breathing down your neck.

Sure enough, you watched him through the open door to his bedroom, curled up in a ball, skin glistening and pale, begging to a nearly empty room to stop. It threw your nerves haywire, the only thing saving your nails from being chewed to shreds were the slick black gloves of your suit. Sighing in frustration you turned to leave the room. You weren’t going to get the arm tonight, again.

But you stopped at his hushed begging. It felt so wrong to leave him, to leave anyone like that. With a sigh, you thought about what would wake you up without any physical contact. Your fingers already itching, they balling into a fist and with all the frustration that had been building up you slammed the side of it into the wall.

Listening, the bed shifted to the loud thump it created, and a wave of relief came over you to hear his breathing slow. You backed up from the door so he could investigated where anyone else would easily reason it was part of the nightmare or just the neighbors.

Glancing up at him, your instincts were saying something was wrong. The Soldier took a long time to really look at the room, confusion pushing on anger etched in his face while his hands gripped the door frame. Gulping, you didn’t move as if it would somehow destabilize your invisibility.

Instead he gave a long sigh, pushing his damp hair back and returned into the room.

* * *

The sun beaming through the empty apartment curtains revealed a flat stadium of dancing stray dust. You gently blew into the ray trying to calm yourself while the other line rang. When it picked up you sighed, a sudden spike in your heart at the prospect of angering the agent. When did it get like this? It used to be fun.

“This isn’t going to work.”

“But you said-”

“I know what I said last week but I’m done here. You don’t have to pay me but I can’t be here anymore.” chewing on your lip you thought of a lie. “The truth of the matter is…I’ve never had to be invisible for this long. I think it’s draining me. I’m constantly hungry no matter how much I eat and there doesn’t seem to be any effect. In fact I think I’m losing weight.”

There was a long silence that lulled you into thinking he was ready to give, instead, you got something worse then him telling you to stay. “You know something odd _Ghost_.” you waited, feeling your nerves slowly climb. “You always start out every lie with stating it’s the truth.”

“Excuse me-” No you didn’t. You did lie but that little ‘fact’, he was pulling that right out of the air.

“Have you been caught then?”

You’ve been lying about your abilities as well as a whole lot of other things since you could remember. Not to mention, how the hell would he pick up on something like that. You’re interactions never lasted longer than five minutes. No, he was making things up again, and it infuriated you.

“Or perhaps-”

“I’m heading home. Whether or not you want to keep doing business is up to you.”

“You can’t just leave.” he was trying to remain calm, you could hear the irritation slip through. “Without us-”

“I was surviving just fine until you showed up, I’ll be just fine with you gone.”

You hung up, clutching the phone in your hand and bringing your knees to your chest. As authoritative as you came off, you were scared as hell. Knowing these men weren’t limited by morals. Knowing you’d be labeled as evidence, and they incinerated evidence. You looked back up at the warm sun, wondering if things could really go back to normal after this.

“Lovers quarrel?”

You were so startled by the deep voice, when you turned the cell slipped from your hand and thudded against the wall thanks to the silkiness of your suit. A whole new fear took you when you found the Soldier, the assassin, leaning against the wall, the apartment door closed. He didn’t look smug or even angry. Just that neutral expression when he wasn’t sure what sort of impression he should get from the situation.

“Something like that.” you mumbled, turning back and wondering when he snuck in the apartment. Maybe you were too distracted, a scarier thought, he was just that good.

“For someone who runs around invisible you sure do talk loud.”

You wiped your head back with a glare but his lips only quirked on one side. Teasing or not his eyes couldn’t even make it come off as mean. They were still so gentle it tore you up more for having accepted the mission.

Looking away in guilt you asked. “So you heard that.”

Compared to when he snuck in, his footfalls were deep and you could feel them encroaching on the bare floor. “I had some suspicions someone was following me.” He sat down on the opposite side of the light. “Didn’t imagine they were inside my apartment the whole time.”

Tilting your head on your knees you had to know, “Suspicions huh? Whenever I slip up people usually assume it’s a ghost.”

“I don’t believe in ghosts.” you squinted at him showing you weren’t going to accept that answer. He half smiled again. “I guess it’s just a gut instinct at this point.”

You hummed holding yourself tighter like the air of worry was freezing.

“So what are you going to do now?”

You shrugged. “I don’t know.” the pause dragged out. The confession was struggling to surface, you rubbing your legs in an attempt to comfort yourself. “I think that’s the scariest part.”

He only nodded, a very real understanding in how far away his stare went.

Getting the courage, or maybe you were just desperate to take your mind off the situation, you turned to him again. “Can I ask you something?” he looked at you, not an ounce of him seemingly guarded. “My employer doesn’t really deal in specifics. They kept referring to you as The Soldier.” You noticed his jaw tense at the alias. “I was just wondering what your real name was.”

He mulled it over, his eyes trailing the wall before giving in. “It’s Bucky.”

When his eyes came back to your disbelieving face you actually got that quiet laugh of his out of him. “Bucky? What is that, a nickname?”

“It ah, it is actually. But I like it.”

“It’s not a very scary assassin name.”

“What about yours?”

You told him in all confidence,“but I’m also just a thief. Thieves don’t require scary names. If anything we tend to adopt stupid names like, 8-Git or Soggy Dog.”

Bucky looked at you, brow furrowed in confusion. “You’re a thief? What were you going to steal from me, my light bill?”

Coughing uncomfortably you gave a long glance at his arm and then up to his face, looking as sorry as possible.

It took him a moment before Bucky reeled back. “My arm? You were going to steal my entire arm?”

A smile started to force its way on your lips, “I-well, you know, I was getting paid a lot for it-”

“Oh you were getting paid a lot,” he teased, “that makes it so much better.”

You were laughing now, the embarrassment flooding into a giggle fit. “No it isn’t. I really should have just stuck with stealing from banks.”

“Or, I don’t know, get a real job?”

“Now you sound like my mother.” If he were closer you would have jokingly nudged him, finding yourself oddly comfortable with Bucky unlike with the Soldier.

Bucky leaned forward, scratching his head and then smoothing out his long hair, “Well…if your ‘employer’ knows where I am, chances are they’re going to send more people.” he paused, chewing on his words. “If you want…I could take you as far as you want to go. Until you feel safe from them.”

Your breath hitched in your throat at the offer. Things really weren’t going to be the same. “And…we wouldn’t be going back to America?”

“I’m not, no.”

“So…I’d have to learn a new language?”

Bucky struggled to hold back a smile and nearly rolled his eyes. “It wouldn’t be that hard. I can teach you.”

You groaned a little, but thinking of your employers and their resources, their lust for strange technology and abhorrence for evidence. Ultimately, you decided it was the best option to stick with someone who knew what they were doing.

“Yeah, I suppose it couldn’t hurt to try.”


End file.
